


Hummingbird

by GretchenSinister



Series: Blood Red Blacksand [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Gen, Manipulation, Prison, blood red blacksand, cannibalism mention, essentially a Silence of the Lambs fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27047047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Years ago, an unusual serial killer nicknamed the Sandman was caught, tried, and imprisoned. Now, Agent Tooth must interview him in an effort to catch a new serial killer who calls himself the Boogeyman. But the man she meets in the glass-fronted cell isn't anything like she was expecting...
Series: Blood Red Blacksand [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974061
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: Blacksand Short Fics





	Hummingbird

**Author's Note:**

> In this spooky season I happened to unearth the first fic I wrote in the Blood Red Blacksand AU. It was written as a prequel to two separate serial killer prompts on the RotG Dreamwidth kinkmeme (Rounds 2 and 3), one focusing on Sandy, the other focusing on Pitch. It was originally posted in April 2013. 
> 
> It's true that no archive warnings apply, but...well. Be careful when talking with Mansnoozie.

“You here to see Sanderson Mansnoozie?” The guard at the entrance to the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane asks the young woman, scrutinizing her FBI ID.

“Yes. The one they called the Sandman. The FBI think he might have some insight into a case we’re working on.”

“Well, he was a psychologist before—and, well, _during_ the time he was committing those murders. Is that why?”

“Partially. I’m afraid we’re trying to keep some of the details of this new case quiet for now.”

“Anything that helps you catch ‘em. All right, Agent Tooth, follow me.”

They walk through a series of corridors that become increasingly darker and more bare. The transitions are not gradual: at each stage there is a door, different each time, but conveying the same message. Those within will not get out. As Tooth and the guard prepare to walk into the darkest corridor behind the heaviest door with the most fearsome lock, he explains the rules for interacting with Mansnoozie safely.

“Don’t touch the glass. Do not give him anything that hasn’t been pre-approved, and, if he gives you anything, do not touch it with your bare hands. It’s not only psychology he knows about, Agent.”

“Yes,” she interrupts him. “It’s also poisons. But surely he couldn’t—”

The guard shakes his head. “Two years ago, Mansnooize requested several specialty inks—he draws, to pass the time, I suppose. Initially the doctors denied his request, because they thought it might be possible for him to use them as weapons. He was given some standard art supplies. They thought he had gotten over it. He drew all of them pictures. There were three doctors on his team then. Well. Somehow he had created a contact poison on the paper. The same for all three, you understand, he couldn’t do his usual thing with limited resources. It was slow acting, they all lived. But his least favorite needed a liver transplant.

“All I’m saying, Agent, is this: don’t underestimate him. And don’t say you already know that. Trust me. I see him more than most. I can put a face with all the terrible things he did. But sometimes—he’s just not what you’d expect.”

“Understood. Thank you for your warning. It only reinforces the briefing I was given before heading over—and my earlier research.”

The guard nods, then uses a keypad and a large, heavy key to open the last lock. “He’s going to love your outfit,” he comments wryly. “FBI agents usually wear that much color these days?”

Tooth looks down at her skirt suit. “It’s just green,” she says, frowning.

“There’s not much of that down here, though,” he replies. They step into a small control room with another guard and a row of monitors. A barred door leads to the corridor that contains Mansnoozie’s cell, and the guard that led her down here unlocks and opens it.

“I put a chair in front of his cell. Your initial request for a visit noted that you wanted to speak to him alone—that still what you want?”

“Yes.” Tooth gives him a small smile. “I don’t think it would reflect well on the FBI if they qualified agents who were afraid of men already in cells.”

“All right,” says the guard. “I’ll be watching you on the monitors. Anything happens, we’ll be there before you can blink—but you don’t want to do that too much around him either. Okay. Good luck. Keep to the right of the corridor; you’ll have to pass some other, more ordinary cells before getting to the last one—Mansnoozie’s.”

Tooth nods, and steps into the hallway. It’s cold, just damp enough to be uncomfortable, and she can hear the “ordinary” inmates begin to say things as soon as they see her. And she’s not afraid, no, but all the same, she would rather not hear the things they have to say. Things that she’s heard before, for daring to be pretty, brown, and professional. No, the lunatics will have nothing new to say to her, though they will say it all at once. So she uses the skills the FBI didn’t teach her and walks quickly down the hallway, looking straight ahead, filling her mind with a buzzing that blocks out their noise. She doesn’t want this part of her visit to lodge in her excellent memory. There’s already too much there she doesn’t like.

Finally, she reaches the end of the hallway and the small folding chair she focused on during her walk. Taking a slightly deeper breath than the ones that preceded it, she turns to get her first look at Sanderson Mansnoozie.

He is rising from his own chair, smiling graciously at her. He gestures, and after a moment of confusion, Tooth realizes he is offering her a seat. In the chair placed by one of the guards of his prison. She doesn’t sit down, and Mansnoozie remains standing.

“Good morning,” he says, in a welcoming voice, as soothing as any lullaby. “Please, take a seat. You’ve walked quite a long way to get here.”

“Dr. Mansnoozie,” Tooth begins, “I’m Agent Tooth, with the FBI. I understand you were informed I would be visiting you today.”

“I was informed of _a_ visit, certainly, but not that my guest would be a lovely young lady. I’m very sorry I cannot offer you a gathering with better company, but they gave me so little time to arrange things. May I inquire as to what has occasioned your call?”

“I’m with Behavioral Science,” Tooth answers. “I’m part of a team working to track down a new serial killer who is active currently. There are aspects of the case that we felt would be useful to ask another—serial killer—about, hopefully in order to better understand this new killer’s motives.” She stumbles over calling Mansnoozie a serial killer. She’s studied his case intensively, but now, in front of him? There’s nothing about him that seems dangerous. In fact, he looks almost _angelic_. Cherubic. Short, plump, and rosy-cheeked despite the lack of sunshine down here, with shining blond hair doing its best to curl despite the short prison haircut.

He gathers his lips in a moue of disappointment. “Alas! I was so hoping you were one of my admirers.” He glances fondly at one of the walls of his cell.

Tooth can’t help but stare. It’s covered from floor to ceiling with layer upon layer of letters.

“I only save the best ones, of course,” he says, turning back to her and smiling. He has a small gap between his front teeth.

“Dr. Mansnoozie. I’m afraid I cannot be counted among your admirers, though I daresay I know more about you than most of them. Now, about this case—”

“Oh, do you? I like that very much, Agent.”

“I didn’t study you because I thought you would like it.”

“Of course not. I understand entirely. The study of an individual does not begin for his or her benefit, of course.”

Tooth recalls how he would stalk his victims for weeks or months before killing them. “We have very different ideas of how to study individuals, doctor.”

“Perhaps we do now. Who can say what the future holds? Ah,” he holds up a hand. “Yes, the case, the case. You want me to help you on your case. But why me? Even among the select group I belong to, I am not typical.”

“The man we’re tracking now has sent letters to law enforcement. In them he mentions you.”

Mansnoozie’s eyes widen ever so slightly. “Does he now?” For a moment his look of mild geniality is replaced by one of keen interest, and Tooth wonders if this is how his victims saw his face. The moment soon passes, though, and the mild smile is back. “Well, I have all sorts of admirers. If he’s a writer though, he should have written to me. I’m sure I’d have written back.”

“Mansnoozie. He also has the same profile for his victims. That is, none that we can determine.”

He opens his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I chose those who needed me. I understand that sometimes it’s difficult for outsiders to see that.”

Tooth only frowns. “He calls himself—”

“The Boogeyman?” Mansnoozie interrupts.

She narrows her eyes in suspicion. “You read the news a lot down here?”

“Oh, no no no. I never read the news. Even before I moved here. They only put the most ghastly things in the papers. I was just guessing. I’m sure I don’t know anything else about him.”

“Maybe you should make some more guesses.”

Mansnoozie sighs. “In the context of an FBI agent’s interview, guesses would be entirely useless.”

“What context would guesses _not_ be useless in?” Tooth asks. She’s got to get something out of him today. He might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign that says ‘I know more than I’m saying.’

“A friendly conversation, of course! A bull session, if you will. Sit down, Agent. Make yourself comfortable. I don’t bite. Unless it’s called for.”

Tooth sits down slowly, and Mansnoozie does the same on the other side of the glass. “All right,” she says, “bring on the bull.”

“Friendly, Agent. Friendly. Like my letter writers. Did you know, most of them tell me their dreams? Without me even asking!”

“Well, I suppose most of them know you were a psychologist. Most people still think of Freud and dream interpretation when they hear that.”

“It’s all intensely fascinating to me! I personally think it’s because the papers called me the Sandman, or so I was told. Is that true? I like gossip so much better than news. Anyway, they give me their dreams, and hope that I’ll give them something in return. You want something from me, of course. Do you offer me a dream?”

“I hardly think my ambitions are related to this conversation.”

“Relax, Agent. Relax. I’m not interested in your professional goals. I’m talking about your dreams. What you dreamt last night, for example.” He looks at her expectantly.

“I don’t remember,” Tooth says.

“You’re lying,” Mansnoozie points out, not unkindly. “But maybe later. Is there any dream you’d be willing to share with me? Any at all? I’ll know if you’re lying, but maybe you could pick something typical? Most people dream about having their teeth fall out at least once in their lives.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then we’re not having a friendly conversation, and I have no need, even here, to converse with unfriendly persons.”

Tooth tries to think. If she has to tell a dream to Mansnoozie to get information from him, so be it. After all, what could he do with the knowledge? He’s going to be behind glass for the rest of his life. And surely she’s dreamt something harmless, normal, generic. Teeth falling out? Having to go back to high school? Being naked in public?

But under pressure, her memory fails her as it’s never done before. If he was to ask her now to remember last night’s dream _now_ , she would be telling the truth if she said she couldn’t recall it.

“I can only remember one, right now,” she says. Mansnoozie tilts his chin up, eagerly waiting. “I’m at my old house, as a child. I didn’t have any pets in real life, but in the dream I have a big gray tabby cat. She’s running downstairs and I’m following her. She goes outside and I run after her, but I can’t find her in the yard. I’m looking around for her, and eventually I go around by the kitchen window, where we had a hummingbird feeder that my mom always kept full of sugar water. I never saw any hummingbirds there, but in the dream, there are dozens of them. Green, blue, purple. They’re in the air, and on the ground as well. The cat I never had is killing them, one after another. I wake up before I can do anything.”

“So you’re the cat,” Mansnoozie says, looking very like one himself.

Tooth is taken aback. “But the hummingbirds…”

“Well, you’re certainly not dead,” Mansnoozie points out. “And you’re the one who catches others, are you not? No matter how beautiful they might be.”

“Do you think the Boogeyman is beautiful, then?”

“Thank you for telling me your dream, Agent Tooth. Will you tell me something else about the Boogeyman? To help me help you. Tell me, Tooth: Does he use his teeth?”

“You know who he is.”

“Is that a yes? I’m just guessing, I told you.”

“You guess well,” Tooth says. “It’s currently confidential, but I’ve been given permission to tell you if it seemed relevant. He eats parts of his victims, so I would say yes, he does use his teeth.”

Mansnoozie smiles, showing his own. “Well he certainly didn’t learn that from me.” He leaves his chair and goes to a corner of his cell, picking up a piece of computer paper and a few pens in a variety of sizes. “Pardon me. I don’t like to leave my hands idle for too long.”

Tooth nods. “Do you keep your brain busy as well? Do you have any other guesses about him?”

“I think he’d suggest that you wear a brighter green. Something iridescent. Like your hummingbirds. It’d suit you very well.”

“I’m not going to catch him by buying new clothes, no matter how flattering they are. And didn’t you just say I was the cat?”

His hand moves quickly across the page, and as he draws he frequently switches between pens. There’s something odd about the way he does this, and after puzzling for a moment, Tooth realizes that Mansnoozie is ambidextrous, alternating the hand he’s using as he works on different parts of the sketch.

“I didn’t say the shining green would make you a hummingbird. I just said it would make you look like one.” He looks up. “Would you be so kind as to show me your teeth? Just for a moment. Any way you like.”

“Will you give me another guess in return?”

“Yes, and I’ll even make it serious.”

Tooth gives him her best photo-ready smile.

“Ah! Thank you.” Mansnoozie returns to his sketch. “I feel honored, you know, that you chose to smile for me. All of Tooth’s teeth, framed so pleasingly by the cheerful curve of lightly glossed lips—I bet you don’t smile for other people when they ask. That’s good, though. I’m sure they wouldn’t be looking at your teeth if they did.”

“You wouldn’t have minded if I had just bared my teeth?”

“Oh, no. Hmm. I think I wouldn’t even have been surprised. He’s lucky to have you on the case.”

“The Boogeyman? Why?”

“How do you know I wasn’t talking about your supervisor?”

“How do you know my supervisor’s a man?”

“For the same reason you didn’t think it was strange that I alluded to occasions when strangers asked you to smile. Now, to my guess about the Boogeyman.” He stops drawing. “I think the Boogeyman wants to find someone he doesn’t want to kill.”

He picks up two pens and begins to draw on the paper with both hands simultaneously. Tooth has never seen anyone do this before, and as she ponders his statement, the movement of his hands becomes almost hypnotizing.

Mansnoozie continues speaking, modulating his voice so his words become songlike, expressing nothing but the most perfect calm. “I expect it will be almost impossible for him to do so. Even someone skilled in creating fantasy worlds would find it difficult—probably—to offer a false version of this wish.”

“You know who he is,” Tooth says again, her eyelids drooping. “Help me find him.”

“I don’t work for free, dear Tooth,” he says softly.

Tooth blinks and sits up straighter. A flash of disappointment flies across Mansnoozie’s features. “What do you want?”

“What don’t I want?” he asks, smiling broadly. “But if I had to choose just one thing, I would say: a window.”

“You’re asking to be transferred. I’m sorry to be so frank, but that’s highly unlikely.”

“Then I suppose this will be our last interview. What a pity.” He continues drawing.

“We need that information, Dr. Mansnoozie. We could have your privileges taken away instead of rewarding you.”

He chuckles. “Yes, you could take away my letters and my drawing supplies. What other privileges do I have? They treat me as if I’m very dangerous, you know. So, you only have two steps of escalation in that direction, that, I think I should tell you, I don’t fear at all. I will still be able to sleep and dream.” He smiles up at her, revealing the gap in his teeth again.

“Have you ever had a lucid dream, Agent? In mine, I protect the children of the world. It’s all very real. I often find myself asking Chuang Chou’s question. With a few modifications, of course.”

That’s far too weird to dignify with a response. Tooth takes a breath and blows it out through her nose. “I have no power to authorize a transfer. Maybe…maybe I could get you something else?”

“Then I won’t give you the exact information you need. But that could be fun, couldn’t it, Agent? Like figuring out a puzzle.”

 _People will die!_ Tooth wants to appeal to him, but she doesn’t know any argument less likely to affect him. “So what do you want, besides the transfer?”

“Gold ink. I don’t think they should deny it. They have so many efficacious ways of keeping me in line now.”

Why gold ink? But he is right, isn’t he? The staff do know how to make sure he can’t harm anyone. The incident with the doctors couldn’t happen again. “I’ll work on it,” Tooth promises.

“Then I’ll say more when I have it. Thank you, Tooth. This has been a most interesting morning. Did you bring gloves? Is it a cold April?”

“Yes.” She can’t understand this subject change.

“Ah, good! I wish to present you with this token of my esteem.” He holds up the drawing he’s been working on during their conversation. “And I know what they’ve told you about me.”

The drawing startles her, though she’s careful not to show it. The center section of the paper is taken up by a highly realistic rendition of her smile, while in the bottom left corner a cat is leaping towards the top left corner, which is full of hummingbirds. The right side of the drawing though, is taken up by a stylized male figure, attenuated and shrouded in a black cloak. The cross-hatching that forms the shading looks too violent to have been made by someone drawing as placidly as Mansnoozie. Strangest of all to Tooth, however, is the face of the male figure. It’s how she can tell the figure is meant to be male at all; its realism contrasts starkly with the inky flow of the body it’s attached to. The face is narrow, handsome in a severe way, with an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, thin lips, and slender, pointed eyebrows. She feels as though she should recognize it, but no name comes to mind. Maybe once she’s home and can ask her memory in safe surroundings…

“Yes…I have gloves.” Tooth reaches into her bag and pulls out a pair of thin, blue, fake-leather gloves and puts them on.

“Always safer to follow the rules, isn’t it?” Mansnoozie places the drawing in the slot in the glass wall and pushes it through. “You can have it tested, of course. So you don’t worry when you accidentally touch it. I certainly wouldn’t poison someone I just met that I liked as much as you.”

“Thank you,” Tooth says, delicately picking up the drawing and scrutinizing it, a small line appearing between her brows.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Mansnoozie says. He rises when she does, and now bows slightly. “Until next time, then, Agent.”

“Goodbye, Dr. Mansnoozie,” she replies. “Until next time.”

He can tell she doesn’t take her eyes off the drawing for her entire journey down the hallway. As he’d hoped.

* * *

Mansnoozie rolls the little bottle of ink between his small, soft hands. He does it slowly, as if trying to memorize all the sensory impact contained in the object beyond its intended artistic purpose.

“You know this, Agent, I’m sure,” he says, “and I know it, but I want to bring it to the front of your mind.”

“Go on.”

“How many locks of hair did they find when they went through my house?”

“If you mean the ones you made into paintbrushes—”

“Agent, I didn’t have any others.”

Tooth swallows. “Twenty-five.”

“Exactly. And how many preserved brain stems did they find?”

“Twenty-four.”

“All labeled, of course. Labeled with their dreams. I admit I was impressed when you managed to match most of them.”

“You said in court that we had named all of your victims.”

“Yes, but you switched the dreams for two of them. Understandable, of course, there was a touch of pronoun confusion for them both—but that doesn’t matter now.”

 _It might have, if you hadn’t murdered them,_ Tooth thinks. She’s appalled by how normal this conversation seems to Mansnoozie. How can he sit there, talking about brain stems and locks of hair and dreams—they were people! But she’s beginning to get the feeling that he knew that. He felt it keenly. Of course they were unique. Of course they were individuals. But that didn’t mean that the Sandman wasn’t going to kill them. After all, sometimes the death-drive had to be realized.

“Now, Tooth, do you think that I would be so careless as to misplace a brain stem?”

“No…” Tooth breathes. “Are you saying that the twenty-fifth paintbrush was someone you let go? Are you saying that person is the Boogeyman?”

“You’re jumping to conclusions, Agent. But I’d be willing to discuss this subject further if I had even one ordinary sable paintbrush. Maybe Senator Bennett could send me one? For Sophie’s sake.”

* * *

It’s not much to go on, but while the request for the paintbrush is waiting to be approved, Tooth goes over the photographs of Mansnoozie’s known victims, as well as the human hair paintbrushes, which have been kept as evidence due to the presence of the twenty-fifth. It had been assumed that the brush pointed to another victim—now, Tooth realizes it could point to many, if the hair belongs to the Boogeyman. She matches hair color to brush—Mansnoozie kept the brushes very clean, and it’s easy to figure out most of them. Finally, she’s left with three, all made of black hair. One is tightly curled, and she puts it with a photograph of young woman in graduation robes. One is slightly wavy, and has a reddish sheen in the light. The other is the purest black she’s ever seen. It’s smooth, and so, so soft—when Tooth realizes she’s touching the hair, she drops the brush on the table. But as she does, she catches a glimpse of a single white hair in the center. That one, then, probably doesn’t go with the construction worker in his thirties, who in the filed picture is unfortunately wearing a bandana.

She picks up the last brush again. “Dark hair,” she murmurs. “Not young.”

It’s only a small breakthrough, but a breakthrough it remains. Tooth smiles and looks at her watch. It’s a little after noon, and her smile vanishes when she realizes she can’t plausibly skip lunch now.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to eat. That’s well behind her. It’s just that it’s difficult to do so, when she can picture the face of someone who might be ending up on the wrong side of the plate even now.

Screw approval. She needs information, and so Mansnoozie is getting his paintbrush this afternoon. No more delays. No more rules.

* * *

The paintbrush is just the beginning.


End file.
